Task Force Equipment

This page is about Task Force Equipment the equipment cache used to support a task force weighs nearly 60,000 pounds and is worth about $1.4 million. Add the task force members to the cache and you can completely fill a military C-141 transport or two C130's.

Logistics specialists handle the more than 16,400 pieces of equipment needed to support the task force. To ensure rapid and effective response, the task force equipment cache must be a construction site, communications center, high-tech engineering firm, mobile emergency room, and camp rolled into one.

The equipment cache allows the task force to be totally self-sufficient for up to 72 hours.

The equipment cache consists of five types of equipment: medical, rescue, communications, technical support and logistics.

The search component of the equipment is a lot like the equipment at a normal construction site. Common cache supplies include concrete saws, jackhammers, drills, lumber and rope. This equipment is used to safely reach trapped survivors, and to carefully and effectively remove them from the rubble.

The communications section allows rescuers to stay in contact in case of a find or an evacuation. Generators, lights, radios, cellular phones, laptop computers and other electronics equipment are used.

More than 500 items make up the most high-tech of all the equipment: the technical support cache. Snake-like cameras and fiber optic scopes are used to locate survivors trapped in rubble. Sensitive listening devices that can detect even the slightest human sound locate survivors who are still alive.

The logistics section cares for the needs of the rescuers as they work in 12-hour shifts around the clock. Supplies include sleeping bags, cots, food and water, as well as cold weather gear.